おふでさきの第一節で、神様は「むねはわからぬ」と教えておられます。むねを理解しなければ、神様からの聖典であるおふでさきを理解することはできません。「むね」とは何か？天理教本部は「むね」を神の心と訳している。これはある意味理にかなっている。我々は神を理解できないのだから。しかしこれが「むね」の真の意味だろうか？『おふでさき』における「むね」の用法を見てみよう。
神様は「胸から出るものを考えよ」と説かれる。神様は「胸を掃え」と説かれる。神様は「胸の内を観察している」と説かれる。私たちはそれぞれ自分の胸に依存している。胸の掃除は自分で行える。胸の内から急いで掃除すべきもの、胸の内から考えながら行うべきもの、そして胸が落ち着くことで未来は約束される。「胸」の用法から、胸は我々の魂そのもののように見え、魂から生まれるものが我々の運命である。魂ゆえに、蒔いた種を刈り取るのである。
In the first verse of the Ofudesaki, God tells us, ” We do not understand the mune”. Without understanding the mune, one will not be able to understand the Ofudesaki, our sacred scripture from God. What is the mune? Tenrikyo Headquarter translate the mune as God’s heart. This kind of makes sense, we do not understand God. But is this the true meaning of mune? Lets see how mune it is used in the Ofudesaki.
God tells us ponder what comes from the mune. God tells us to sweep our mune, God tells us that God is observing the mune’s interior, we each depend on our mune, the mune’s sweeping by oneself can do, the mune’s interior what comes from hurry sweeping, the mune’s interior what comes from ponder to do, and the mune is settling the future is promising. The way mune is used, mune appears to be our own soul, and it is our fates that come from our own souls. Because of the soul, we reap what we have sowed.
Let me explain what the soul is. The soul resides in our physical bodies. While it resides in our bodies, it collects the negative energies resulting from our evil actions, stores them, and eventually releases the energy as our negative fates (suffering) back to us. This suffering may not occur until our next lifetime, as circumstances may not present itself to be manifested in this lifetime. When our physical bodies cease to function, the soul leaves our bodies carrying our fates (negative and positive), and their associated thoughts (thoughts they acted upon to create the fate) to our next destination. This is why our memories of past lives are erased, but we do not begin with a clean slate when we are reborn again. This is why God encourages us to purify our minds now. God gives us instructions in the Ofudesaki how to do this.
In summary, when our minds are pure, only positive fates will appear from one’s own soul. When the mind is pure, one is saved. This is God’s message to the world. Again without understanding the first verse, one will have difficulty following God’s instructions to purify the mind, and to spread God’s teachings to the world.
OFUDESAKI-GOD'S TEACHINGS 